Tangled
by RowanDarkstar
Summary: The fresh air has taken the flush from her skin, but she's still the worse for the wine. I know her.


**Disclaimer: **This all belongs to Renaissance Pictures and Universal. I wish I could say it was all mine. Truly I do. But I'm just borrowing this wonderful world with all due respect.  
**Spoilers: **Through "The Quest"  
**Timeline: **Soon after "Destiny/The Quest"

Many thanks to Teddy E and Elsie Austin for the insightful and supportive betas. :)

**TANGLED**

by

Lady Rowan

Copyright (c) 2008

Xena's been having a rough day. She does, sometimes. No explanations. Gods know, this past moon has brought enough strife for the worst of moods from either of us. Xena's offered me bits and slivers of her side of events, cryptic and fragmented impressions. But in the aftermath life has been returning to an even hum, and today has offered nothing more taxing than comfortable travel and shopping for needed supplies. The proprietors have been honest and fair. Even Argo's been more amiable than usual, eating her road feed without complaint, complying with a couple of _my_ commands without winks and goads from Xena.

But Xena has been distant, soft spoken. The pattern is familiar. I know she won't talk, even if asked, so I don't waste my words. She gets tangled in ghosts from her past. At least, I think that's what happens. She tries to keep me apart from those worlds in her head, and I'm ashamed to say I sometimes agree it's for the best. But I stand a little closer when the tension pulls across her brow.

Sometimes, on such nights, she sleeps on my side of the fire. I stroke her hair to quiet the restless dreams. I don't know if she knows.

We've made it to the nearest village by late afternoon. Nondescript. A reflection of dozens we've passed through in our travels. Dinner at the local tavern beside the inn. Better food than we expected, though Xena barely touches her portion. She does drink the ale. And then the wine. We linger in the tavern longer than is our custom. Xena is usually eager to escape the excess company for the quiet of our room. But tonight she keeps ordering "one more drink" and avoiding moving away from the fire. She doesn't talk, or sing with the other nightly drinkers as she's been known to on her more boisterous evenings.

I carry on a few conversations with the locals in the earlier part of the night, garner some useful information and absorb some regional color for my scrolls. But eventually I find my quiet place beside Xena. She nurses mug after mug and watches the villagers and the fire with dark and hooded eyes.

It's when her gaze lingers too long on my profile, expression soft and unwary, and she says gently, "Your hair's just so pretty," that I swallow too hard and declare it's time to go. I retrieve our cloaks from hooks on the wall and wrap Xena's around her shoulders, surprised to feel the gooseflesh on her arm. She's been seated near the fire. My stomach knots. I'm still too conscious of how recently I drug her feverish and delusional body up a snowy mountain to watch her die.

The air outside is crisp and bracing, and I find my own thoughts grew fuzzy in the warm, thick haze of the tavern.

We make our way in silence round the back of the inn and up the outer stairs. Xena stops on the landing and rests her hands on the railing, gazing toward the night sky. I fall comfortably into place beside her. The fresh air has taken the flush from her skin, but she's still the worse for the wine. I know her steps, her breath, her posture, too well not to feel the slack.

Her words catch me unguarded.

"I didn't always hate him, you know."

"What?" My voice is a bare whisper.

Xena's is throaty and stripped of her years. Her eyes look to the trees, but her focus falls on some image I am denied.

Xena picks at the cloth of her cloak where it has fallen across her forearm. "He had this way of...curling his fingers around my wrist. It was really...tender."

The silence seems to spread from the stars, and I feel like their glow is surrounding us in protective silks.

Caesar. She's talking about Caesar. By the Gods...

I slip a guiding arm around her waist. "Come on, Xena."

--

She's asleep even as her head settles on the pillow, armor on a chair, edges of her hair damp from the cold water she splashed on her face. For a warrior of the land, Xena has a surprising affinity for cleanliness, even when drunk. Can't say I mind.

I settle our things in place for the night. Only one bed in this room, but it's wide. Xena has never minded sharing. With me.

I stretch out beside her and dowse the bedside candle. Xena's breath is steady and audible beside me. Moonlight outlines the chair by the window. And in the quiet, I suddenly feel the weight of my own limbs. The day's tensions have taken their toll.

My eyes slowly adjust to the dimness. Xena shifts in her sleep, breathes out with the slightest whimper escaping her throat. Her fingers, graceful and slack, fumble at the edge of her blanket.

Acting as much on instinct as forethought, I move my hand to cover hers and her fingers tangle with mine.

An impulsive and fleeting smile graces my lips. Even now, I am surprised when she accepts my touch, when she doesn't flick a knife to my throat when I startle her from slumber.

Her skin is so pale in the moonlight, dark hair mixing with the shadows. She is all light against dark, but Xena is anything but black and white. I turn my hand in hers and smooth my thumb over the thin skin of her inner wrist. Her pulse tickles the pad of my thumb, and I wonder what the world would be like, what pattern of stars Xena and I would be sleeping beneath...if he had just...kept holding her hand.

In this moment, in the starlit shelter of a village inn, Xena is not the once Destroyer of Nations, not the feared Conqueror, not the Warrior Princess of legend -- but a woman. A mother, a lover, a friend. A beautiful, gentle, caring creature sleeping beside me. A woman who trusted in a man who promised her teamwork, solidarity, a comforting hand at her back and an arm around her shoulders as she slept. A woman who had her heart torn from her chest, and who raged against the world to quell the ache in her soul.

I settle my head deeper into the overstuffed pillow and try to close my eyes to seek slumber, only to find my throat clogged with inexplicable tears. I blame the late hour and the heady wine. But her fingers are still curled around mine, and her palm is warm and strong on my skin. I know in her sleep she is watching over me.

I wonder, in the lines between consciousness and dreams, if mine are the only ears ever to hear her confession, mine the only gaze to see her raw blue eyes.

I fall asleep against the warmth of unshed tears and the sound of Xena's breath in the dark.

#


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